South Africa has undergone
significant changes in the past three decades, and this transformation is set
to continue in the next three. The trends that have shaped the country’s
democratic, constitutional, and economic order will continue to influence its
future. The urgency of addressing its troubled past, contested present, and
global competitiveness demands immediate action to prepare for the future. 

Traditionally, rigid
post-liberation politics and rhetoric will continue to erode in favour of
multiparty collaboration and consensus, otherwise known as coalition government
arrangements. The contest for political and social capital sufficient to define
the nature, form, and character of a liberated South Africa and its associated
freedoms will keep growing and upsetting the political economy. 

 

The impact of critical
skills development exclusion through socially engineered access to quality
education will slow economic growth. The transformation of everything
rhetorical will continue to be a soothing political ritual that creates an
impression that something will happen out of hot air. In a skewed and growing
income inequality economic system like the RSA, views of those who monopolise
capital will generate ethical, ideological, and trust concerns. 

 

The generic investor
tick boxes that spur investment decisions will remain choked by the basics of
corruption, crime, ailing or disintegrating public infrastructure,
dysfunctional state institutions, energy and logistics insecurity, and
unprecedented public policy uncertainty. This is despite the expectation
that the investor community should accommodate the presence and existence of
men and women of a breed that does not respect the rule of law.

 

As a cocktail, these
create a complex future only political and economic hyenas and vultures, also
known as the criminal underworld, can transact to establish oligarchic nodes of
influence backed by state power. As a society, we are stuck in a world with a
defined constitutional order, a vision of social and economic justice, and many
unknowns that are a function of politics and investors will shift the
proverbial needle. 

 

As a nation, we are
called to reframe and consider the long-term durability of the order we are
creating. Leadership at all levels is challenged to bring change from all sides
and establish new hierarchies with reconfigured leadership compositions. 

 

· South
Africa’s future requires exploring new decision ecosystem development
opportunities. These opportunities extend beyond the traditional, freely
elected public representative-based system and are crucial for managing the
country’s politics, economics, and political economy. Emphasising the need for
these new systems can make the audience feel the importance of innovation and
adaptability. 

· Another
key strategy for South Africa’s future is creating data and technology-based
systems. These systems will track society’s future demands in a way that frees
human effort to focus on broader national goals and associated time scales.
Stressing the importance of these systems can make the audience feel the
potential for progress and efficiency.

· Thirdly,
the organisation of public power in society, which is encapsulated in state
organs, needs to be reorganised to create new hierarchies of efficiency powered
by evidence and experience. 

·      Fourthly,
build human and institutional capabilities that are more adept at innovation
and resilient to shocks generated by (human and natural) exogenous factors.

·      Lastly,
increasing scrutiny of the total national effort’s effects on human dignity,
social and economic justice, non-racialism and non-sexism, and fundamental
human rights. 

 

As faith in the
democratic order’s ability to make democracy durable falters, a National
Dialogue to reframe our national resolve is inevitable. In the last three
decades, South Africa has become more fractured as a society, with a resurgence
of ethnonationalism, narrow class populism, social distrust, great
state-private sector power competition, and a rising politics of suspicion and
resentment.

The cultural allegiances
that divided our society in multiple ways and made the various communities an
unreliable basis for building a nation require a vision that should hold us
together. Without iconic individuals, a national dialogue might unearth
institutions or individuals connected to our destiny.